Craftsmen
In Clay

( Originally
Published 1940 )

With carpentry and cabinetmaking, pottery-making was among the first
crafts practiced on a wide scale in America.
There is a natural logic to this, the logic of people who occupy their time and
skill with necessities in a more or less natural succession of importance.
American settlers arrived and built their houses. The importation of furniture
on a large scale being impractical, they set about building it. Simultaneously
with the need for houses and furniture arose the need for the utensils of
everyday life, of which the products of the potter are among the most
predominant. Again large scale importation was not immediately practical or
desirable. By a curious irony, it was only after a fairly well established
American potters' industry existed that importation loomed as a large factor,
throwing the American potter into competition with European manufacturers.

In Colonial America every community of importance must have had its
pottery. Yet the records of these enterprises are surprisingly meager. The
town-clerks, diarists, and travelers of that day apparently felt that there was
nothing worth noting about the mere existence of a pottery. To all intents and
purposes we have little evidence, prior to 1684, except that they were there.

In 1684 a large pottery was founded by one Daniel Coxe, near Burlington,
New Jersey.
Coxe himself is not one of our early potters,
however. So far as we know he may never have visited America.
He was one of the "proprietors" of West
New Jersey and organized his enterprise, strictly as a
business proposition, from his London
home.

An inventory of his properties tells us, in part, "I have
erected a pottery att Burlington for white and chiney ware, a greate quantity to
ye value of L1200 have been already made and vended in ye Country, neighbour Colonies and ye Islands
of Barbados and Jamaica
where they are in great request. I have two houses and kills with all necessary
implements, diverse workemen and other
servants."

The "chiney ware" may have been
a good grade of saltglazed white earthenware but, as
we shall understand later, was certainly not real chinaware, or porcelain. Coxe had trouble with his white ware. There is a record of
a plant superintendent, Edward Randall, imported from England
at some expense to handle this product. Randall was subsequently sued by Coxe for failure to produce the goods. He was defended by a
potter named William Winn who testified that there was "noe Clay in the County that will make white ware." Of
the actual prosperity of the Burlington
pottery we have no record.

The early American pottery industry is characterized by the
existence of large numbers of small enterprises scattered all over the
colonies, with a heavy mortality rate among them. Success in any of our early
manufacturing efforts, even such fundamental ones as pottery, was the
exception. In our scanty records there was apparently no room for accounts of
those who fell by the wayside.

By 1750 there was such recognition of the necessity for domestic
manufactures for the general welfare of the colonies that public subsidy was
not uncommon. Yet, as always, it was more often sought than granted. Two
partners, GoussinBonnin
and George Anthony Morris, started a pottery in Philadelphia
in 1769. In 1771 they hopefully sent specimens of their work to the Legislature
observing that they "would not wish to aspire to the Presumption of
dictating the Measure" of the Legislature's encouragement, "but with
all Humility hint at the Manner." Unfortunately the hint was futile and
the Philadelphia
pottery failed in 1774.

New York
was naturally a center of manufacture. Two of the earliest names in the records
are those of John Remmey and William Crolius. These
men are believed, by some, to have been partners. In any case a map was drawn
by David Grim in 1813, purporting to show New
York City as it was between 1742
and 1744. On this map, a group of buildings on Potter's Hill is labeled "Remmey and Crolius Pottery." Whether or not these buildings
represented separate manufactories and Grim's
notation was meant to imply that both the Remmey and Crolius
potteries were here located is of little concern to us. Evidence clearly
reveals a link, formal or otherwise.

The Grim map shows very distinctly, a short distance to the
southeast of the other buildings, a "Corselius Pottery." As it
happens, John Remmey and William Crolius married sisters by the
name of Corselius
and consequently were brothers-in-law. I. N. Phelps Stokes, in his Iconography
of Manhattan Island, says: "The first stoneware kiln or furnace in the United
States was built in this year
1730 in this city." He then quotes the noted potter, Clarkson Crolius, as
saying, "It was first called Corselius Pottery, afterward Crolius Pottery . . ." In effect, William Crolius and John Remmey married
the Corselius
Pottery and afterward divided it.

John Remmey carried on his pottery until
his death in 1762. His place was taken by John 2nd. He, in turn, took his own
sons, Henry and John 3rd, into partnership in 1790, dying two years later. The
two brothers remained in partnership for two more years after their father's
death. In 1794 Henry left John and went into business independently. He
subsequently left the potters' trade altogether. The last accounts of his
activities indicate that, after a variety of enterprises, he fell upon evil
days, ultimately fleeing the city to escape the consequences of the
embezzlement of public funds.

The third John Remmey, however, maintained
the old Pottery on Potter's Hill. He took a dignified part in the city
government as became a noted scholar. He was Assistant Alderman of the Sixth
Ward from 1817-1818. (The same post, incidentally, was held by John Crolius, Jr.,
1799-1800, and Clarkson Crolius,
1802-1805, apparently being something of a potter's prerogative.) He was one of
the five members of the Committee on Arts and Sciences, 1817, and thus assisted
at the rendering of many wise decisions. For example, ".
. . .resolved that so large and growing a City
as New York
should not long remain without its latitude being accurately ascertained."

He never travelled, yet was the author of
a scholarly book, Egypt As It Is. He owned one of the
largest libraries in New York City,
in his time, maintaining it as a lending library, at so much per annum for
"Gentlemen and Ladies of Quality." He continued the active operation
of the Remmey Pottery until 1831 some eight years
before his death.

The Crolius
family was prolific. The original William, who married Veronica Corselius, was
in partnership for a time with his brother Peter. Peter was issueless. William,
on the other hand, was followed in the stoneware craft by five more Williams,
five Johns, one George, and two Clarksons, making
fifteen Crolius
potters in all.

The first Clarkson Crolius, grandson of William, became active in city
politics. He served on a diversity of committees protesting elections,
inspecting elections, etc. When he held office as Assistant Alderman of the
Sixth Ward, however, he was scant in attendance at meetings.

His career in office hardly appears to have been notable. He
sponsored "A law to prevent dogs from running at large." The measure
was passed and soon revoked. In 1803 he was one of only two Assistant Aldermen
favoring a revision of the City Charter. The conservatives of the Council were
stern in their defense of the document. "It is perhaps inexpedient for the
Common Council at this time to express any opinion of the motives of those who
appear solicitous to obtain alterations in the charter or to animadvert upon the
means which have been used and are now pursuing to accomplish their
views."

Of course to advocate change in a charter is far from being
necessarily suspect. On the other hand, whatever the merits of the particular
case, the subsequent activities of Crolius hardly show him in an enviable light. In spite of
his habitual absence from meetings he had a great desire to be re-elected to
his office in i808. He had lost the confidence of his constituents and
exercised considerable ingenuity trying to regain it. An affidavit of the
election states that ". . . . while the
Inspectors were engaged in the manner above stated (counting the votes) they
were interrupted by a person of the name of John A. Crolius who proposed to them a
different mode of counting." And in addition to John's proposal, whatever
it may have been, ". . . . Mr. Leonard Seaman one of the Inspectors
(related to Crolius
by marriage) did make the proposition that said Inspectors should take each for
himself a separate parcel of ballots and examine it." By means of these
special systems of ballot-counting variously endorsed by Cousin John and his
wife's relative Leonard Seaman, Clarkson Crolius was elected. But the
election was held over again, and when tallied by more conventional methods was won by Crolius' opponent.

The second Clarkson succeeded his father, and Crolius Pottery continued to be
made far into the 19th century. Both the Remmeys and
the Crolius
made stoneware, usually of a light grey or tan color, salt glazed, and
decorated with flowers and formal patterns in cobalt blue. It was extremely
hard and sturdy and may be taken as representative of the best in early
American stoneware.

Other New York
potters were Dirick Benson, John Eutatse,
Henry Bensing, Jonathan Durrell,
and Thomas Campbell. Probably no other colony supported so many, but there are
records of potters at Salem,
Peabody,
Braintree,
Weston, and Boston,
in Massachusetts;
one in Litchfield,
Connecticut;
one somewhere in South Carolina;
one each in Huntington,
Long Island,
and East Greenwich,
Rhode Island.
There were others in Montgomery
and Bucks Counties,
Pennsylvania.
These, in addition to those already mentioned in more detail.